Education: Pennsylvania Accent

Unlike New York, Pennsylvania has no state university, yet its pattern of higher education is also shifting. Last week Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton signed a bill making Philadelphia’s 82-year-old Temple University, the nation’s largest private university after N.Y.U., into a “state-related” university after the pattern of Penn State. In return for state funds, Temple will admit a minority of state-appointed trustees to its otherwise private board and accept Pennsylvania students at relatively low tuition rates.

The shift speeds Pennsylvania’s trend toward state help for private universities rather than construction of new ones. Even such basically private universities as the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh receive substantial amounts of state aid. Financially floundering Pitt is studying whether it should go the route of Temple. The outcome may hinge on a master plan for the state’s system of higher education (which also includes 14 state colleges), scheduled to be drawn up by the Pennsylvania Council on Higher Education next year.